A Meeting Before
by Fluehatraya
Summary: A young Harry Potter has a chance encounter in his cupboard. A random oneshot that ran away with me.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. This takes place probably when Harry is around seven or eight years old.**

Harry, although he was known only by the names of Freak and Boy in the current walls he was sheltered within, sat in the cupboard on his rickety cot, staring at the wall across from him. For hanging on the wall by a thin nail and length of wire was the only ornament in his room, excluding the knight figurines he had snuck into his cupboard when he discovered them abandoned on a playground.

Back to the object that held his fascination, it was really a simple painting, although it seemed to be lacking somehow. It portrayed a parlor with large bay windows that let in plenty of light, and was bordered by a frame that had once been painted gold, although it was marred and chipped most of the way off to reveal the ugly copper underneath.

Aunt Petunia had had it for as long as Harry could remember, tucked into a corner of the attic all the time. He could remember seeing it there when he cleaned and organized as a chore. He had asked her once about it, a few years back, and was promptly reprimanded for asking questions. Harry was only thankful that Uncle Vernon had not come to learn of this transgression, or he would have gotten off with worse than a verbal beating and extra chores.

Still, once he had snuck up there to see the portrait again and in more detail. On the back he had found, written in handwriting that was elegant but simple: Lily Evans Potter.

Harry had presumed that it had belonged to his mother, since he had once overheard Aunt Petunia mention her name in passing mention, and her last name was his.

He had never expected to receive something that he felt was as valuable as the painting, but Aunt Petunia had actually given it to him on his birthday! It was the only present he could ever remember receiving, although he was certain he must have when his parents were alive. According to her, it had been cluttering up her attic, so she was just moving it to the cupboard for storage, nothing more or less, and it just happened on that day. But sometimes Aunt Petunia could act indirectly nice to him, and Harry was sure that this was one of those moments.

For weeks Harry had appreciated the painting every spare moment he had. Although it felt oddly empty, it was still the nicest thing he owned, flaws and all. Harry had come to understand that flaws were a part of life (unlike his aunt), from the threadbare sneakers he owned to his own freakishness, and even his presence in his relatives' otherwise perfectly normal house.

Harry liked to believe that the parlor would have been in the house he had lived in with his parents, even though it was far too nice to belong to a bunch of deadbeat drunks the likes of which would get themselves killed in a car crash. The light scene of the parlor was a far cry from his cupboard, but just looking at it helped him imagine that he was there rather than in the cramped space under the stairs.

As he was staring at it now, however, something miraculous happened: strolling into the scene ever so casually, as if paint was not only capable of moving but should always do, was a person!

To be exact, the person was a woman of slight build, with long fiery hair that would have put to shame a dragon's flame. Although her back was to him, Harry could see she dressed in something that was similar to a dress, only more robe-like in style, and it was bottle-green in color.

When she turned around however, Harry gasped, softly even though surprised so as to not draw the attention of Uncle Vernon. Somehow though, even just thinking of him while in the proximity of the portrait was wrong. Her eyes were a green the likes of which he had seen only in his own two eyes. Aunt Petunia always avoided making eye contact with him and cringed away when she did so, guilt and regret flitting across her face. However, Uncle Vernon cursed the color as unnaturally bright, as if lit from within by devil fire. While neither Harry nor Uncle Vernon were in any way religious, the description had still made the boy flinch and avoid looking into reflective surfaces for a time.

The painted lady's eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, her own eyes widening.

"James?" She asked, before furrowing her brow. That wasn't right; her husband was much older than this twig of a boy, and the eyes weren't his brown.

The boy was still gaping as the woman inspected him further, not taking long to come to a conclusion.

"Are you . . ." She trailed off, rubbing a hand over her abdomen. Harry could now see, through the fairly loose material of the dress robes, a distinct swell.

"Mom?" Harry whispered, not daring to speak any louder, as if to dispel the image before him. It couldn't be real, could it?

"Harry." This time she smiled broadly, and that single action seemed to make her glow.

Tears threatened to overflow and Harry tried pushing them back; crying had only brought him more pain before, through the ministrations of his uncle attempting to "beat the freakishness" out of him. However, tears of soul-wrenching desperation for love the kind of which a child has been deprived of all their life are much different from that of pain, and the levee broke.

The woman in the painting too was crying, if for a different reason (being painted before her son's birth in the real world, she had no idea as to what happened beyond when the painting was enchanted), and this was probably the only thing that convinced him that she truly was real. So they continued in this manner for several minutes, until Harry finally calmed down enough that he could wipe tears and snot away from his face with the sleeve of the sweater that dwarfed him.

After that followed a lengthy discussion. At least, it started out like that, but Harry didn't have much to say. When he informed the painting of his mother – for she truly was his mother, if only in mind – that he lived with the Dursleys, she immediately fretted over his well-being and cursed (actual magical curses, although since she was a painting they did nothing, and Harry just thought that it was gibberish) over his situation.

Afterwards, she told him of the Wizarding World and her experiences there until afternoon faded to night and that to dawn, by which time he eventually fell asleep.

In the morning, when the boy did not respond to her harsh rapping upon the cupboard door or her screeching at him, Aunt Petunia unlocked it and opened it, poking her head in. A single ray of light, quickly blocked by her obstruction save for what little could stream past her, flooded into the cupboard and threw itself up onto the wall with the portrait, which revealed the face of Lily Evans Potter, her younger sister, glaring at her.

Petunia quietly removed the painting from the cupboard and slunk away, shutting the door behind her and allowing her nephew a day's rest.

When Harry awoke later that day from a wonderful dream, he saw nothing but a nail on the wall across from him. While he was certain that there had been a painting there for weeks, as time passed the young boy came to believe that it was naught but a dream and the memory of it eventually came to be discarded in a murky corner of his mind.

From that day on however, Aunt Petunia had perhaps been a bit less harsh with her words, and a bit more allowing in his slip-ups. As Harry mulled over this discreet but abrupt change many years into the future, the memory of the painting came up once more and a smile tugged at his lips. Perhaps Aunt Petunia had dreamed of the same portrait.


End file.
